It's Good to be a Minnesota Twin

The Hasz twins, Bethany and Megan at the
MSHSL championships.
Photo by Gene Niemi

It's been a good year for Minnesota twins.  No, not the team that plays at Target Field, Minnesota running twins. The Hasz twins from Alexandria finished one, two in the MSHSL AA championships this Fall.  The Agnew twins--Melissa and Jennifer--finished ther collegiate careers by winning national championships.  Melissa won her last race for U-Mary, the NCAA DII 1500 championship in the Spring.  Jennifer won her last race for the Maurauders, the NCAA DII XC Championships in Spokane last Saturday.

Until this Fall, the Agnew sisters had run together since seventh grade.  For Jennifer the introduction to athletics came when her sixth grade teacher encouraged her to go out for sports.  "I didn't want to play volleyball,"  Agnew said.  So she began running. And jumping(triple jump).  And throwing the discus.

"I love doing it,"  Agnew says of running.  "I'll keep runnning regardless(of being involved in competitive sports)."  It wasn't competitive success that got Agnew started, it was as much social as athletic motivation that pushed her toward sports.  She has an older brother, but he wasn't into sports, so her athletic role model was a classmate in Onamia, Mary Virnig, who Agnew says, helped instill her love for running.

She wasn't an athletic prodigy.  Her competitive success was modest in high school.  She had PRs of 5:19 for the mile, 12:08 for the two-mile, and 106' for the discus.  Didn't qualify as an individual for any events at the State Meet, but went as part of relay teams.  Her senior year the four by 800 relay she ran on was fourth.  Her training never went above 20 miles a week.

She didn't blossom as a runner until she got to college.  It was at U-Mary and through the efforts of their coach, Dennis Newell, that her talent and that of sister Meslissa emerged.  Newell was attempting to take a young program to the next level, and the Agnew sisters became a key part of that development.  In her first year, Agnew says, the program had only eight women, five of them were freshmen.  Newell recognized the talent in the sisters, but also knew that he had to bring them along slowly.

"I visited a lot of DII schools," said Agnew of the process of choosing U-Mary.  "If I'd gone anywhere else, I don't think I would have been as successful."

The credit goes to Newell who is "pretty motivating," Jennifer said.  "He has a big personality.  Kind of like a big kid.  He says he looks at us as daughters or sisters.  He's good.  Our stars aligned.  He can take your goals and enable you to reach them and go beyond.  What he does, it works."

Agnew had no visions of great athletic achievements when she began.  "I was more excited to be on a team."  Her initial philosophy was to "try everything," thus the triple jumping and discus throwing.  When she got to college, the focus narrowed.  That young cross country team "got to nationals my freshman year," she said.  She discovered not only her love for running, but that being successful at it was pretty nice too.  Melissa was the star, the leader of the pack, eventually winning several national titles her senior year.

Jennifer(left) and sister Melissa(right) warm down together after
Jennifer won the NCAA DII title in Spokane.  Photo courtesy of
USTFCCCA

During their senior year, Jennifer, missed the entire cross country season due to a knee injury.  She didn't think the pain in her patella was going to be a problem, but "it just never really went away."  She rested, tried running.  Pain would came back, and she'd take six days off again.  When that didn't work, she didn't run for a month.  During that time, like most runners, she discovered how attached she was to the activity when she could no longer do it.

It also gave her some lessons in her career choice.  Jennifer is currently in graduate school pursuing a career in physical therapy, and she had the extra season of eligibility in cross country.  She didn't approach the season with lofty goals or as an attempt to match her sister as an NCAA champion.  "(Melissa) got seventh or sixth (in cross country)," said Jennifer.  "So, I thought if I could get top ten.  My goal was to be right there."

In Spokane, Agnew pulled the leaders through a 5:20 first mile.  She didn't attempt to break away, she said, in fact her pace was slowing down(5:40 second mile), but she was soon extending her lead and running away with the race.  "I was running scared," Jennifer said.  "I didn't know how much of a lead I had or if anybody was coming up on me."

Then she had an equipment malfunction.  The timing chip on one of her shoes had come loose and was flapping around.  "I was freaked out," she said.  She didn't know if she had to have the chip or not, so to be safe, she grabbed the errant chip and carried it to the finish.  She was not only in the top ten.  Jennifer, like her sister, was a national champion.

Where does she go from here?  She has several more years in grad school.  She still wants to run competitively.  The goal now being to make it to the Olympic Trials in the steeplechase.  She'll stay with Newell as her coach.  Sister Melissa is doing graduate work in the Twin Cities and running for the Twin Cities Track Club.  So the story for this set of Minnesota Twins has at least one more chapter.

Jennifer Agnew unning away from the competition to the NCAA DII title
Photo courtesy of USTFCCCA